This doctrine, as applied to the prince now on the British throne, either is nonsense, and therefore neither true nor false, or it affirms a most unfounded, dangerous, illegal, and unconstitutional position.
From his critique of the French Revolution, Burke condemns a doctrine regarding the British monarch's legitimacy as either nonsensical or unconstitutional.
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More from Edmund Burke
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
No experience has taught us that in any other course or method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our hereditary right.
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